MILLARD HOTEL, OMAHA

Omaha's Millard Hotel was the scene of a deadly fire on the night of Feb. 8, 1933 that claimed the lives of seven firefighters.

"About 11 p.m., parts of the roof and upper floors collapsed, possibly due to an explosion in the hotel’s paint shop, and the outer north wall blew outward," the Omaha World Herald said in a 2018 recollection.

"Firemen on ladders and in the alley were crushed by a searing hot blast of bricks and debris," the newspaper said.

The United Press reported: "Captain George Cogan, brother of Fire Chief Patrick Cogan, was rescued after he had lain pinned under a girder for six hours."

The hotel was built in the 19th Century.

REFORM SCHOOL, ARKANSAS

Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus spoke in anger after fire claimed 21 lives at a state reform school on March 5, 1959.

"There's absolutely no reason for this to happen the way it did except because of negligence on the part of someone," Faubus fumed.

Mesh covered windows at the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville. The school had no fire alarm system, no telephone - and no adult supervision at nighttime. The inmates lived in squalor.

Bodies of 12 of the victims "were heaped below a window they couldn't open," the United Press reported. "Nine other boys were sprawled in ashes that once was a U-shaped brick veneer dormitory building."

As appalling a sight as it was, there's reason to believe Faubus was trying to shift blame as he had visited the school before the fire.

A 1956 report by sociologist Gordon Morgan documented the school's problems, according the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

Morgan said:  “Many boys go for days with only rags for clothes. More than half of them wear neither socks nor underwear during [the winter] of 1955–56….[It is] not uncommon to see youths going for weeks without bathing or changing clothes.”

“All buildings…are in need of extensive repairs, particularly the boys’ living quarters,” Morgan said.

CHURCH BLAST, SOUTH DAKOTA

A propane explosion ripped though Saint Mary's Catholic Church in Marion, South Dakota, just before Sunday mass April 10, 1949, killing six people and injuring about 50 others. 

The Daily Republic of Mitchell, South Dakota, reported: "The blast sent the floor ceiling-ward, pushed out the thick tile and brick walls and let the heavy roof tumble to the floor."

Authorities attributed the blast to "a gas leak in an almost new propane gas furnace and an arcing spark from an electrical connection," the newspaper said.

A parish member driving to the church said: "I saw a big puff of what looked like steam. The roof seemed to lift a little. Then when I looked again it wasn't there."

HOTELS, PALM BEACH

1925

Palm Beach, Fla., March 18 (Associated Press) - Fire which for a time threatened to wipe out an entire section of this famous winter pleasure resort, was brought under control Wednesday night after two big hotels, the Breakers and Palm Beach, had been reduced to piles of glowing ashes.